Verbatim » the theory-practice gap

the most difficult thing in the world

Shanta Rohse — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 02:12:23 +0000

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Johann Wofgang von Goethe

imagination and craft

Shanta Rohse — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 03:22:30 +0000

Imagination is in control when you begin making an object. The artwork’s potential is never higher than in that magic moment when the first brushstroke is applied, the first chord struck. But as the piece grows, technique and craft take over, and imagination becomes a less useful tool. A piece growns by becoming specific….

It’s the same for all media: the first few brushstrokes to the blank canvas satisfy the requirements of many possible paintings, while the last few fit only that painting – they could go nowhere else. The development of an imagined piece into an actual piece is a progression of decreasing possibilites, as each step in execution reduces furture options by converting one – and only one – possibility into a reality. Finally, at some point or another, the piece could not be other than it is, and it is done.

That moment of completion is also, inevitably, a moment of loss – the loss of all the other forms the imagined piece might have taken. The irony here is that the piece you make is alway one step removed from what you imagined, or what else you can imagine, or what you’re right on the edge of being able to imagine.

David Bayle and Ted Orland, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, 1993, p. 15-16, describing the hard work between vision and execution.

when learning metaphors become literal

Shanta Rohse — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 13:44:16 +0000

For centuries, a common habit among learning theorists has been to characterize cognitive processes in terms of prevailing technologies. Among the tools and machines that have been used to describe thinking are catapults, hydraulics, telegraphs, telephone switchboards, and, most recently, computers.

The further one goes back into history, the more inappropriate such comparisons seem. And, conversely, the more recent the metaphor, the easier it is to take it as a literal truth. Most of us would find the image of a catapult almost useless as a figurative device to understand learning, whereas we tend to slip uncritically into characterizing the brain as a computer. Consider, for example, commonplace references to learning as acquiring and inputting data, to learning difficulties as problems in brain wiring, to communication as transmission and interfacing, to thinking as processing and compiling information, to memorizing as storing, and to remembering as retrieving and outputting. Despite their seeming reasonableness, one might expect such notions to be a source of amusement to future generations in much the same way that references to other, now eclipsed technologies seem amusing today.

Brent Davis, Dennis Sumara, and Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Engaging minds: Learning and Teaching in a complex world, 2000, pp. 52-3

reinforcing existing practices

Shanta Rohse — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 21:19:06 +0000

A farmer at the turn of the century saw that the horseless carriage could get him to market and back more quickly, but had no inkling that the same vehicle would send an interstate highway through his pasture and change his way of life forever. It takes a generation or three to get past the point of depending on the old medium for a way to think about the new and to the point of exploiting the new medium artfully in its own right.

The dream of the virtual library comes forward now, I therefore submit, not because it promises an exciting future, but because it promises a future that will be just like the past only better and faster. No one can deny the usefulness of such conceptions, but the limitations of their usefulness must be recognized as well.

James J. O’Donnell, The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed, 1994